


Philomene

by IanMuyrray



Series: Muy's OtherOutlanderTales [10]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Attempted Murder, Canon-Typical Violence, Castle Leoch, Curse Breaking, Curses, Dark Character, Dark Fantasy, Enemies to Lovers, Exile, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lallybroch, Magical Realism, Mind Control, Rape/Non-con Elements, Shapeshifting, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Witch Hunts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-10-31 14:39:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17851460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IanMuyrray/pseuds/IanMuyrray
Summary: Jenny -- thought dead by the rest of the world -- has lived in quiet exile since her king brother betrayed their family by allying with Black Jack Randall, who is on a mission to weed out any and all women who possess magic. Execution now waits for any woman who shows herself to know and use magical powers, or any woman merely suspected of being magical - no matter her rank, her family, her influence, her children, or her own desire to live.Jenny was supposed to be the first in the rising storm of murdered women, but, by some miracle, she survived. And has lived in hiding. But now she has been found.





	1. Homo homini lupus est.

**Author's Note:**

> @lady-o-ren (soloh on AO3) said: Muy, you could write me a Jenny/Ian fantasy au. 
> 
> And so I am. This story will be multi-chapter and an exploration of certain themes, ideas, and genres outside of my fic-writing comfort zone. I was lucky enough to speak with Soloh (whose fantasy writing I adore) about her prompt and she and I were able to knead through some really cool story ideas together, even if only briefly. She shapes this fic in more ways than she knows.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jenny, living in exile, is attacked by a magical creature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translation: "Man is wolf to man."

Jenny had lived the past several years of her life in solitude. She inhabited a tiny cabin in a shady glen, one room, white-washed with peeling walls. It was self-sufficient and sturdy, often smelling of jerky and bread, occasionally onion. Dill, lavender, bay leaves, catnip -- they all hung from the heavy beams of the cabin ceiling among cloves of garlic. 

 

In the garden, she was digging up turnips. The plant life in the glen did not belong to her; she had not planted them. She did not know how they got there -- she only knew she was now responsible for them. She tended them all, nurtured the vegetables and herbs as they grew, and, when ready, she harvested them. Caring for them in this way was how she paid her debt to them. They had fed her and healed her when she’d stumbled upon the glen several winters ago, brutally injured and in hiding, still covered in rich furs and a heavy brocade dress, though torn and muddy -- a ball gown. The cabin and its garden had become a sanctuary, a bunker protecting her from a world who assumed her dead. She made it her home. 

 

Shaken loose by her work, some hair had fallen out of the braided knot on the back of her neck. She blew it out of her face and brushed stragglers away with the back of her hand, trying to prevent a smear of earth across her forehead, but it was hopeless. Her trowel loosed a turnip, much smaller in size than last year’s. She dusted the vegetable off and turned it around in her hand, feeling for any oddity, before dumping it into her basket with the others. All the vegetables were smaller than she’d assumed. Had she been wrong to harvest today? From the calendar she’d notched into a piece of wood, she’d harvested twice the amount on this exact day last year. 

 

She stood and braced the basket on her hip, shaking her homespun skirts and apron loose with her free hand. It was a warm day, and sunlight filtered through the trees. In the shade, a coolness had settled into the air, filling Jenny’s lungs, rejuvenating her. The sun was setting, however, and the evening was on its way. She needed to finish the day’s chores with the daylight. 

 

Jenny set the basket of root vegetables on her doorstep and went to check her traps. They were always full of critters -- rabbits, mostly. Fat and flavorful ones. She could use more, and she checked the hooks on her belt, ready to come back laden with meat. 

 

She knew every inch of the land, had staked it out in cautious missions when she’d first arrived. She could accurately draw every boulder and landmark tree on a blank map; knew where the fish beds always were in the stream nearby, what patches of clover were most popular with the local herd of deer. She knew precisely where she’d awoken, her body dumped by soldiers, maybe three or four miles away. 

 

She also knew the best places to lay traps. But this time, to her astonishment, there was nothing. They were all empty -- ransacked, looted, and torn to shreds by what seemed like an animal. Large paw prints circled her traps, and around them, the strike of claws in the mud. She knelt, reaching to touch the streak of blood across the leaves on the ground. 

 

And… it was unusually quiet. All the years she’d spent in her cabin, she had never experienced fear or thought something might harm her outside scattered paranoia of being found alive. She lived nestled in the heart of the trees, protected by something beyond herself. She’d always suspected there were protective enchantments surrounding the places she wandered. But now… 

 

Trying to rein in her galloping heart, she scanned the area around her, but she saw nothing. The tree cover made the location she was in seem darker, more menacing. 

 

She strained her ears, listening for the usual chatter of birds or insects. Perhaps she was being paranoid. Even still, she started to double back to the cabin, clutching the strap of her rifle across her chest, when the unusually loud snap of a twig nearby stopped her. 

 

She hardly dared to breathe, deciding to move behind an evergreen tree, slowly. She circled around, looking and listening for any sign of movement. She slipped her rifle around to her front, placed her hands at the ready.

 

She can kill on sight, she told herself, trying to counter the shaking of her hands. She can hunt. She cocked the gun, drawing deliberate breaths, and stepped around the tree. 

 

But there was nothing. She shook herself and resumed the walk home. 

 

She was unable to shake the sense that whatever it was that had approached her -- if anything -- was following her, waiting. The forest now felt too small, too big, too threatening, and too dark. She didn’t trust the animals or plants anymore and hurried through them. Entering the cabin as quickly as she dared, she shut the door and latched it for the first time in a long time. Despite the heat that still lingered in the air, she shut her windows, the wood of the shutters splintering under her fingers, and latched those, too. 

 

Jerky was laid out to dry on the only table she had. She assessed it with a glance before deciding to get to work, scrubbing her turnips with a rag, sitting on the edge of the bench before slicing them with her dagger over a simmering cauldron of hambone broth. There was only an hour or so before her soup would be ready. She broke off some sprigs of rosemary and dropped them in, ignoring how the herb trembled in her hand. 

 

The night was quiet at the cabin, and Jenny relaxed. She minded her mending and needlework, lulling time away with the repetitive push and pull of thread and yarn. 

 

Even though the cabin provided for her, living a subsistence lifestyle was hard work. Her hands were callused and her body muscled and lean. The scars on her arms and thighs, however, were from before. She was safe here, she told herself resolutely. She was assumed dead -- no one would be looking for her. No one would send anything after her. 

 

The wind blew hard as she tried to sleep, rumbling over the walls and the roof, and rain fell in sheets. She drew the wool blankets in around her, tight, blinking at the orange glow of embers in her fireplace. Sleep, she told herself. It’s just a storm. 

 

A loud crash came from outside. She flinched in her bed, every nerve drawn taut. Had a tree fallen? A prayer came in a rush even as she tried to will herself to sleep, or to wake up -- was this a nightmare? 

 

She felt the rope once tied tight around her wrists; she felt the uniformed man aggressively reaching through her clothing, his hand wandering and pinching while he held her captive in a dark room, no one heeding her struggle. She felt the barrel of a gun as it was held beneath her chin, a finger on the trigger. Her throat closed in on itself as she relived the pain of being dragged into the dark castle yard and beaten in front of strangers, her friends, her brother. How she’d wept and screamed and begged him to stop them -- why hadn’t he? -- but her protests had fallen on deaf, unfeeling ears.

 

Moved beyond fear and into fury as another crash sounded behind the door of the cabin, shaking the walls, she rolled out of bed and grabbed her rifle. She’d evaded them for years. She’d known that sooner or later, they would track her down. Positioning her gun so she could easily fire, she braced herself and waited, allowing two steadying breaths. 

 

With a crack like thunder meeting lighting, the door shuddered off its hinges, and in prowled the largest wolf Jenny had ever seen. Its coat was black, a reddish-brown where the light hit it, and its eyes glinted yellow. Without missing a beat, she fired, point blank. 

 

Somehow, she missed. A loose shot, and a clay jar exploded on her shelf, sending salt flying everywhere.

 

The beast snarled and lunged for her as she staggered away. He came for her again, lips tight and hackles raised. He growled and charged, but Jenny was quick; she circled around and ran out the smashed door, the grass muddy and cold beneath her bare feet, her shift sticking to her back as rain pelted down on her.

 

The wolf moved slowly out of the cabin, still growling and snarling. This was no ordinary beast -- the air around him shimmered like an illusion, and he was too big to be anything natural or wild. She recognized the magic on him -- a wolf made by the king. Her brother must have sent him to track her down and kill her. The wolf’s nails clicked across the wooden porch and stairway as he gathered speed and chased her. 

 

Jenny sprinted into the forest, dodging around trees, breathing wildly. But the wolf was gaining on her; she could almost feel the heat of his breath behind her, could feel his footsteps against the soft, wet earth. 

 

She wiped the rain out of her eyes, squinting to see ahead of her in the darkness. Her legs strained as she ran, her muscles burning. 

 

She leapt over a large tree root and mistook the landing, tumbling to the earth with a yell, her rifle falling out of reach. She backed away, trying to stand, but pain shot up from her ankle and she collapsed. The wolf was there, circling her, watching her every move. 

 

“Stay away,” she warned him as she panted, trying to sound more in control than she felt. “You can’t kill me.” 

 

_ I must,  _ came a voice, and then he pounced, knocking the wind out of her and pinning her to the ground. 

 

Big paws pressed hard into her shoulders, the pain of his nails excruciating, the stench of him terrible and frightening. Blood, death, terror. Jenny wanted to retch. 

 

He bared his teeth and was about to snap them shut around her throat when she throttled his ribs and chest with every ounce of strength she could muster, willing the fire she knew was inside her to her fingertips. It responded to her call, filling her hands, heat sizzling and popping in the rain, burning him. She winced from pain, too, injured by the flames nearly as much as he was, but she kept her focus until he yelped and jumped away from her. She smelled singed hair and skin and smoke, a sharp contrast to the smell of blood and rain and mud. 

 

Her hands were blistered, but triumph thrummed through her. She rose. Ignoring the shooting pain up her ankle, she raced to her rifle and aimed it as he jumped at her again. With the smell of his burning hair and rancid breath in her nose, she fired her second and last bullet. 

 

A sharp yip met her ears and the wolf landed on the ground. The bullet had hit a hindlimb, and he held it at a contorted angle, the wound gaping and red even in the night. Knowing she’d missed the killing blow and even accepting that she’d lost, she tensed, waiting for him to strike. He could still overpower her and tear her apart like she was nothing. 

 

To her utter amazement, his eyes met hers, and he hesitated. Then he snarled and limped away, leaving her in the pouring rain, alone. 


	2. Nulla regula sine exceptione.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jenny has figured out just _what_ the wolf is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translation: "No rule without exception."

Rain fell in massive drops around her, pelting the grass like fingers drumming on a window pane. Her rifle sat heavy in her hands, gunpowder lingering in the air. She was soaked through and sticky with mud, rain, and the sweat of adrenaline.

 

Jenny’sr mind had gone numb, her body frozen. The world had slowed, so much she could count her heartbeats if she wanted to.

 

Jenny recognized the illusion: that had been no ordinary wolf. He was a lycanthrope, or lycan, forced into animal shape by the king. Only her brother was powerful enough to force others into an unnatural body. Lycans were foot soldiers, sent out on missions to do the crown’s bidding.

 

By choosing not to attack, the lycan was likely risking everything dear to him. Jenny knew from experience that the lycans were prisoners -- they had no free will, no freedom -- altered and coerced by threats to their family’s livelihood. The motivation to protect their families and themselves often drove them to extremes. Murder. Massacre. But this wolf had turned away from her the moment he’d had the chance to end it. He could have returned home.  

 

Was it a trick? Dare she run? Stay?

 

She draped her rifle over her shoulder, taking a second to breathe, to think. Perhaps she was not the primary objective for this wolf; perhaps he had found her by accident. Did he know who she was?

 

Yes--he must. There was only one way to ensure that he wouldn’t attack her again: she had to kill him.

 

A wounded wolf wouldn’t get far. The gunshot wound in his leg seemed serious enough to significantly slow the beast down if he planned on tracking her. She might be able to reload her gun if she could make it home. She was a decent hunter, too; perhaps  _she_  could track  _him_. She tested her weight on her injured ankle, exhaling slowly as pain shot up her leg. She could move, but not very fast. She’d need to bind it and find a healer.

 

No. She was in no state to hunt a lycanthrope. They were powerful, with the strength of an animal and the resourcefulness of a human. She knew when battles were lost. She couldn’t hunt him. Not at night, and not in the storm, even as the rain slowed.

 

She set off for home, walking as quickly as her ankle would allow. Just past a mulberry bush, where a distinct, knotted tree root broke the ground, she heard it. A whine, high pitched over the distant rumble of thunder.

 

 _It couldn’t be_ , Jenny told herself as she tread lightly over the forest’s thick brush, ignoring the jabs and scrapes from the gnarled undergrowth. Bathed in moonlight, the lycan was curled into himself against a tree, nestled between knobby roots that pushed into the ground. Each exhale was punctuated by a high pitched cry that faded with each moment.

 

Without thinking, she moved towards him. He shifted in the darkness, curling tighter into himself, lifting his head. He snarled at her, but, oddly, did not make eye contact. He was distressed, perhaps distracted.

 

She dropped her rifle; it was out of bullets, but he didn’t know that. She took a step closer and reached towards him, a gesture of peace. His ears flicked.

 

She spoke, trying to keep her voice steady, to be brave. “Wolf.”

 

He chuffed at her, giving her pause, but then he whined and dropped his head, tucking his snout into the curve of his hind legs. She swept forward.

 

“Let me see.”

 

Her hands trembled visibly as she reached for his leg. The moment her fingers brushed his fur, his eyes glinted; he yelped and snipped at her, slinking away.

 

Knowing that this was more from pain than anger or distrust, Jenny leaned forward and placed a firm hand on his thigh. “I will help ye, but ye must be still.”

 

The wolf sniffed and turned his head away, didn’t flinch as she shifted his hindlimbs to get a look at the wound. She couldn’t see much at all, just the moisture of blood and exposed flesh caught in the moonlight.

 

She cursed and glanced around, checking to see if she was being watched. Snapping her fingers, a fire, an unnatural pale blue, took light in midair. Beyond a curious glance, the wolf didn’t react. She shrugged almost apologetically at him and straightened out his leg to assess the wound better in the light. His body tensed as if holding back a scream from the pain.

 

She wasn’t sure what it was that had compelled her to help the lycan. Perhaps it was the knowledge that his natural form was human, that he was utterly disempowered, a weapon sharpened and extended on behalf of someone else. Besides, he  _hadn’t_  killed her -- and he’d had the chance. And the look in his eyes now. He hadn’t  _wanted_ to, of that she was certain.

 

“I’m sorry,” she remarked under her breath. The bullet wound gaped dark red in the pale blue light. A deep wound, she could not see the bullet with a casual glance. Painful, and might lame him, but not life-threatening.

 

She met his yellow look; there was a heaviness in it, that of recognition. He saw her, knew her.

 

“Someone sent you for me?” she asked, trying to keep her voice natural.

 

He gave what would have been a nod if he were human.

 

“Do you know who I am?” she asked, and her voice broke on the last syllable as he curled his lip and growled at her.

 

He yanked away from her, leaving her aghast and frozen. As if to scare her way, or perhaps to kill her, he prowled around her, limping, and barked. Yipped. Growled. Large teeth gritted in her face, coming together with a click in front of her nose. She flinched and cowered, sucking in a breath, ready to scream.

 

It was a trap, she was going to die, be torn apart alive.

 

 _Leave,_ snarled a weary, furious voice. He backed away.

 

She paused, taken aback. “But--”

 

He charged her, his teeth out. She staggered to her feet and ran, not daring to look back.

 

She flew into her cabin, slamming the door shut behind her. With a wave of her hand, the fireplace blazed. Her brother knew she was alive and knew that she lived here. He’d already sent something -- someone -- for her. He’d know in a matter of hours, maybe minutes, that she’d survived the attack. It didn’t matter anymore that she lived quietly and without magic. Not here, not when he knew where she was. She was supposed to be dead.

 

Her shelves and clay jars and weed baskets rattled as she rifled through them, packing bread, dried fruits, anything she could find and shoving it into a small sack - the most inconspicuous she could find. She dressed quickly to avoid delay. There was fresh clothing-- and thank goodness. Her hands shook as she tied her stays, and she stumbled and lost her balance once as she’d stepped on her bad ankle. She cursed her mother for giving her fire rather than the ability to heal. She bound it tightly with a wrap, trying to keep it from moving, and slipped on her worn leather boots.

 

Muttering to herself about the lunacy of leaving in the dark and freezing rain, she waved the fire dead, extinguishing it with a hiss. She left the cabin behind, not even bothering to check that the wooden door locked behind her. She wouldn’t return.

 

 


End file.
